It was not long ago that the cry of 'webpad' was
being echoed from companies like Hitachi to Gateway. To be honest though,
nothing really long lasting for the consumer market ever came to fruition.
Instead, webpads saw themselves transition into internet appliances,
and then most recently evolving into 'tablet PC's'. The
only areas these mobile devices (what we like to call them) really found a home was in the
vertical markets and industrial applications where they could be tailored to very specific
tasks.

As it
was way back in October of 2000 that we initially saw the first generation
FIC AquaPad, a design which was later updated and showcased at the 2001 Comdex, we
were very excited to get a chance to put the device through its
paces.

The review unit we received arrived in a retail box and
was accompanied by a recharging adaptor, a rather nice
nylon carrying case, and a succinct instruction manual. A developers kit accompanied this AquaPad which
included an 802.11b WLAN Access Point, and 802.11b Cisco Aironet 350 Series PCMCIA
card.

The 2.5lb AquaPad is a medium sized portable
device centered around an 800x600 pixel TFT touch sensitive screen. The device
is larger than a PDA, but smaller than a laptop. The actual dimensions
are 274x164x26 mm, and walking around with it gives the impression that you are playing
a bit part in the newest StarTrek spinoff. The smooth blue and silver AquaPad has several ports
for expansion cards, but not much else, and fits easily into the left
hand.

The unit is encased in a Magnesium alloy shell which
is lightweight, and fairly sturdy. Intended for purely
mobile use, FIC appear to have sufficiently 'toughened' the device to survive the daily abuses it
would undoubtedly receive, though there are few things we would like to see done
differently.

Powered by a 500MHz TM5400 Transmeta Crusoe processor
with 128MB of PC133 SDRAM, and a Midori Linux operating system based out of a
32MB Compact Flash card, the AquaPad is the definition of a low-footprint
device. Expansion ports are kept to a minimum, with just one Type II PCMCIA port, one external
Compact Flash port (useful for saving data, or for an IBM Microdrive), an IrDA window,
two USB ports and a place to stick in a pair of ear bud-style
headphones.

The AquaPad we tested was loaded with a custom version
of Midori Linux, but the devices are also available with Windows CE3.0, 98,
ME and 2000 (98 thru 2000 make
use of an internal microdrive). Midori Linux is the same 'Mobile Linux' that Linus Torvalds of
Transmeta originally demonstrated at the inception of the low-power microprocessor company two years
ago.

The operating system is designed especially for
low-power, low thermal mobile devices and works off of a RAM based file system that can
reside in everyday memory. Under the terms of GNU General Public License, Midori Linux has been
open sourced, so it is an ever evolving free operating system which Transmeta indirectly
supports.

The Midori Linux operating system on our review unit
was successfully upgraded over the internet, and
this underlines the future proofing of the AquaPad, and relative easy of use for users
unfamiliar with Linux. AquaPads are currently available to consumers through a reseller at
AquaPad.org.

Scope of the AquaPad

The AquaPad is not a notebook, and it is not a Tablet
PC. There is no hard drive and if you want to save data you need to install a CF
card in the expansion slot. Once the unit is turned off, any bookmarks or data
stored in memory are lost. The only web browser loaded onto the device is
Mozilla, and not all internet plugins are natively supported by it. In
effect, the AquaPad is essentially a medium for wirelessly surfing the internet in a more
comfortable fashion than a desktop or notebook can allow given their size and
shape.

While this is limiting when compared to an average user on a
notebook, there are applications where this focused technology comes in ahead.
This is one of the main reasons webpads have never gained full acceptance with consumers
however. Vertical markets on the otherhand have the doors wide open for them in terms of what they
can do with mobile WLAN devices like this, and in all honesty FIC have only
scratched the surface in terms of what the AquaPad can potentially be applied
to.

We have heard uses for the AquaPad range from display
tools at conventions like COMDEX, to internet access devices in hotels or
hospitals, to any number of web-based data entry applications. Taking into
account a user with good knowledge of Linux, the potential
for the AquaPad is extremely varied; portable sever monitoring and management for IDC's, data entry
tools for customer surveys and possibly even some home automation uses come to
mind.

Basically, while the existing wireless websurfing
capabilities of the AquaPad are good, they are limited, and it seems only fair to
acknowledge the wide spectrum of uses the device could be applied to rather than pigeon
hole it against full-size computers running Windows as "just a browser with a WLAN
card."

Next up, a close look at all the features of the little blue
AquaPad...